Posted 4:40 AM by sport

It's a defeated man who writes this, but since there is no cathartic value for me in posting words of gloom and sorrow, I won't dwell on those.
To the friends, acquaintances and strangers who've taken the time to express sympathy and support: thank you. May 2004 treat you gently.
If there's "hope" for me, it's in the faces of my babies. I have none of it myself, but I do have a duty to nurture theirs. They are providing some moments of joy to my Mom, who seems unlikely to survive the current grief (but since I've been wrong about most things maybe I'm wrong about that too).

I dunno. I'd say "god bless you all" if that meant anything, but instead I'll just say happy holidays and love to you and yours.
See ya.

Posted 3:58 PM by sport

10 am mass Wednesday 12-03 St Joseph RC Church, Ronkonkoma
(call Moloney Funeral Home for directions... number below)
Burial at Calverton National Cemetary.
Reception at Ancient Order of Hiberninans Division 8 hall, Selden NY 631-736-5855

Posted 5:16 AM by sport

I'm terrified, Pop. Tomorrow (today) we begin the wake. Maureen and Ira and David just got back from North Carolina, where David's other Grandparents are having a hard time. I'm afraid of how they're going to absorb this, just like I don't know how Mom is gonna make it through. Miles and Lily help a lot... I sometimes think Lily forced an early birth so that you could meet them. The joy on your face seeing and holding them will warm my heart forever. Miles will carry on your name, and I know that meant a lot to you.

Tommy Makem was on TV tonight singing "the Gypsy Rover" and I broke down once again... after that some guy sang "Guantanamera" and I wondered if you and Petey were sending me a hint. I'll need something a little more concrete if you can manage it. God, I hope there's a place where you and he and Bobby are laughing and embracing and enjoying a few drams of the good stuff. I don't have any faith, Dad. Please help me if you can.

Many of your buddies at the AOH are pulling together for your send-off... the family is calling and my friends are there for me. Brian has friends helping him too, and I promise that I'll love him and help him as much as I can. Shelley is strong and loving for all of us. I know you were nuts about her and of course it's mutual; I found a girl like Mom, Dad, and we'll raise those babies just as you raised us. I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep Mom together and I swear the family will hold each other up.

I videotaped you smiling as Mom played with the babies on Thanksgiving, and I suppose I'll watch it and lose it again, but I feel so lucky that we had that day. Alex is stunned and sad; I'm glad you two were together Thursday as well. I'll hug Olivia for you and thank her for being a good dog and making you laugh so hard. I went for a random Bible quote to see if you had a message for me. Didn't appear so. Our friends of faith are praying... our atheist friends are whispering sweet nothings. God, I miss you Pop. We put Petey's memorial pin from the firehouse on your lapel and also the Irish Language pin (I forget what it's called... the "fawn-yuh?" ...forgive me.

I'll miss watching Jeopardy with you... and Jon Stewart... I'll miss you all the time. Pop, I dont know how to go on, but I will. Please help Mom.
I can still hear your voice reciting Yeats.
I can still see you in the sun singing the Sodier's Song with your magnificent voice, making me burst with pride at the Feis.
The Christmas lights are going up all over town and I recalled you walking me around the old neighborhood to see them all.
Christ, is it all only memories now? Fado, fado.
I want to make you one more cup of tea.
Thank you, Pop, I will love you and honor you the rest of my life, and hold out some shred of hope that there is a place where we'll all meet again someday.

Posted 8:40 PM by sport

I emailed a handful of people about my Dad, hoping that they'd pass the news around. My current email arrangement does not allow for large bulk mailings so I did a quick guesstimate on who might be able to tell whom. I also skipped people whose current email addresses are not in my "book." Apologies for any seeming snubs.

If you know anyone I may have neglected to contact, please pass the news along.
Selfish as it is, I do need friends right now.
Looks like tomorrow night they may have a "Hibernian Service" with a piper, etc. My Dad's old pals at the AOH Division 8 have offered their hall (where we had the wedding) for a post-funeral gathering on Wednesday. Anyone able to attend is very welcome.

Posted 5:56 PM by sport

My Dad will be waked at Moloney funeral home,
132 Ronkonkoma Ave, Lake Ronkonkoma NY 11779.
631 588 1515

Times: Monday and Tuesday 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm
The funeral will be on Wednesday at
St Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Ronkonkoma,
(time, etc. tba... you may call Moloney tomorrow for info)

I'm not expecting or requesting any condolence visits or gifts; this is just FYI since several people have asked.

We're in very bad shape right now; apologies in advance for any oversights regarding this, baby gifts already received, etc. We love you all and thank you sincerely for all considerations.

The greatest man I'll ever know is gone, and this miserable fucking world just got even darker.

Posted 7:33 PM by sport

Seamus (James) Murphy
born 12-20-18
Dublin, Ireland

died 11-29-03
Ronkonkoma, NY, USA

"I will arise and go now
And go to Innisfree..."

I love you Dad.

Posted 10:53 PM by sport

January 23 - 30
New York, NY
The Juilliard School
Focus! Festival
ALL ABOUT CHARLES IVES

Jan. 23
New Juilliard Ensemble, Joel Sachs, conductor
Four Ragtime Dances
Three Places in New England (chamber orchestra version)
Selected songs with chamber orchestra
Symphony No. 3

Jan. 26-29
Four chamber music concerts, to include:
Piano Sonata No. 1, Concord Sonata, String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, Trio,
Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Three Quarter-Tone Pieces for two pianos, Largo for clarinet, violin and piano, Scherzo: Over the Pavements

Jan. 30
Juilliard Orchestra, Anne Manson, conductor
Juilliard Choral Union, Judith Clurman, conductor
Psalm 90
Washington's Birthday
Emerson Concerto
Symphony No. 4

http://www.juilliard.edu

Posted 4:57 PM by sport

Did the David Garland show on Friday. The place was a gallery and the event had that whole artsy sort of feel, which is a nice change from the accustomed skeevey rock joint. The Four Bags are a nice group of guys with a great sound: trombone, reeds, accordian and guitar. The bass clarinet... damn. Meredith was as great as always, bowing and plucking, trilling and gently guiding the ether, and David got the too-rare chance to enjoy applause for his outstanding music. I sang my one number well enough, despite retiree stage fright, but collaborating with Garland is like collaborating with Matisse... I'm way out of my league. David's new album "The Other Side Of The Window" is as imaginatively rich as his other albums but somehow - probably a more "accessible" approach to rhythm - it comes together as a more obvious whole. I believe he did this deliberately; few listeners can or will extend their minds to draw the connections between things as varied as David's, so here he's helped the process along. I can't say his work is "eclectic" since that implies a pastiche of styles (like my shit) and Garland has his own definite style full of impossible new harmonic colors, lyric / melodic wit, and surprising forms. David's appreciation for (and understanding of) all kinds of music certainly figures in (a coy Wilsonian change here or a cowboy song quotation there hints at how fully he draws from the entire universe of music all the time), but he's always at the wheel. I'm big on all his albums, but these songs are particularly killer-diller.

My minor involvement with the album is one of the honors of my creative life, and guest-performing at the show was humbling. I sure hope the new album gets noticed; David puts more inspiration, consideration and craft into a song than most musicians milk over a career. It occurs to me that the real reason I ever made music - not the reasons I intended, but the real benefit and purpose - was to experience true musicians like David and Meredith.

Afterwards was a jolly hang with those two along with Irwin Chusid and my nephew David. I was the usual whiskey-soaked blabbermouth. Great to see Irwin, who has agreed to organize another Incorrect Music Videos show: stay tuned. It was a nice break from babies and household (though I was delighted to get back to them). David (nephew) and I wound up the night at Farrell's, then back to his apt. to listen to Polnareff's original "Ame Caline" over and over and over again. Sorry, David.

My email situation is FUCKED. Optimum Online, which was a true pleasure for a few years, now officially BLOWS. I cannot access my "Webmail" at all, so reading my mail will be intermittent and burdened with unbelievable heaps of spam ...it averages about 100-150 pieces a day. So if you need to reach me, call me. Or use the "sport at sportmurphy dot com" address. In the meantime, apologies for the many lapses in contact. Apart from the inability to read my mail usually, I've learned that many of my sent messages have vanished into the cybervoid, without so much as a bounceback to let me know there's a problem. This is really a drag with eBay transactions, as massive misunderstandings occur. I also wonder how many friends feel like I've just ignored them entirely.

Rest assured, I'm well and probably wiping something wet off someone cute as you read this.

And maybe you should go get Garland's new album. No, skip "maybe" ...go get it.
Visit http://www.3garlands.com/davidgarland/

Gotta go... Lily's crying.

Posted 1:49 AM by sport

Interacting with these babies is a twofold pleasure, like Razzles, and I don't mean "double the fun" I mean there are two kinds of pleasure modes.

One is that sort of observational thrill where you don't know what to do with yourself. I get this looking at my current favorite book, "Bizarro Postcards" (Taschen). The book just shows unattributed and un-commented-upon images from 30 year old postcards intended to advertise clothes, restaurants, etc. Really cheezy pics with a luminous "8 Seasons of Chromolox" vibe which I DO NOT find "campy" ...I sort of yearn for a dose of whatever quality of naivete, calm, strange "lostness" a given image seems to possess. I feel this way staring at Miles and Lily; it's a mystified wonder at their inscrutable perfection. You get all jumpy inside and just enjoy that agitaion for what it is. It's mad love. "I could just EAT THEM UP!" That kind of shit.

The other is the more viscerally satisfying feeling of experiencing real-time happiness with no goal or point and no caveats or codicils. I get this listening to my current favorite record, "Soul Coaxing" by Tony Hatch (an instro version of "Ame Caline" by Frenchman Michel Polnareff). The song is like a hybrid of every great 60s pop tune: the changes and big shuffle of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" ...the gorgeous string melodicism of "Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus" ...the intro of "Galveston" ...The big room sound of Quicy Jones' productions for Lesley Gore ... the groovy nerdiness of "Classical Gas" ...etcetera. I play it OVER AND OVER again, bouncing in sheer glee and total release. That's how it feels when I'm laughing at some infant insignifica that nobody else would even notice.

It's a candy AND a gum.

Posted 12:41 AM by sport

Busy busy and blogless. The kids are home, and I have a lot of people to thank and things to do and so forth, but it's rough and also my email situation is kind of fucked right now. So quickly:

Next week I am stepping on to an actual stage to actually sing. One song in David Garland's set. If you can go, do so. The man is brilliant and his music is ambrosia. And it's one of the few times I'll actually be out of the house in the foreseeable future. So come down and buy me a cocktail. I will paste his own gig announcement copy below. Meanwhile, I plan to get more disciplined on blogging, if only for the practice. See you again soon. Now... read this and attend:

Concert in NYC November 21st

I'll be singing new songs from my recording "On the Other Side of the Window" with The Four Bags (Mike McGinnis, clarinet, saxophone; Tom Aldrich, accordion; Sean Moran, electric guitar; Brian Drye, trombone) and violinist/vocalist Meredith Yayanos, with Sport Murphy, guest vocalist.
The concert is presented by Roulette ( http://www.roulette.org ) and will take place Friday, November 21st, at Location One, 20-26 Greene Street (just above Canal St.). Performance begins at 8:30pm. Admission: $12, Roulette members free. Reservation/info call: 212-219-8242 or e-mail info@roulette.org
Earlier this year I sang with The Four Bags in Symphony Spaces' "Wall-to-Wall Joni Mitchell," and the "Loser's Lounge" tribute to the group XTC. We so enjoyed working together that we're continuing the collaboration. The Bags are a young, genre-defying, talented band, and with Meredith Yayanos adding her violin and more, it's like working with a mini-orchestra. My friend Sport Murphy, a tremendous songwriter and singer, will join us for a song we collaborated on.

So what kind of music is it? If there's such a category as Downtown Indie Singer/Songwriter, maybe it's that. Who's it sound like? I admire Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson, Nick Drake, Wilco, Kevin Ayres, and Sigur Ros, among others, but don't sound like them. They are originals, and they inspire me to be original. It's been a while since I last sang my songs in New York, and I'm very excited about debuting this group and these songs. Please come!

Posted 1:26 AM by sport

As I stand here contemplating these gorgeous newcomers (yes, they are doing better and getting cuter every day), permit a glance at the discarded husk of my former self, and a sigh for what might've been.

It's interesting to see another piece from France, this time from someone called "headman," who evidently writes for the French equivalent of CMJ (which is a fucking awful comparison to make, but pretend for a minute that CMJ was not a complete embarrassment to college, music or journalism... try... try...) The other French writer, Richard Robert, wrote a second piece, for a Swiss mag. I may not have posted it, but it complements nicely his beautiful "Les Inrockuptibles" piece, so I'll get to that soon.

Anyway, if the long months of worry and sorrow had allowed, I would have mentioned a New Yorker article that ran a little while ago. The gist of it was that there's a movement in France running counter to the familiar America-hatred we've come to expect from our Gallic cousins.

I was glad to see this, of course, though - solipsist that I am - I was already prepared to assert French superiority over American cultural comprehension, based solely on the reception of my album there. Fact is, my acceptance by French critics (who, unlike American hacks, actually influence record sales) PROVES I wasn't deluded through all my years of music-making.
They have a history of "getting" American artists who've been completely ignored or throughly misunderstood here (and yes, I do include Jerry Lewis). I say this with a genuine sense of satisfaction and a profound sense of futility. The artists these critics cite... the context in which they frame their considerations of my work... the general level of respect with which they treat me... these things move me deeply.

Too late blues.

Yeah, they were wise to Cassavetes before we were, too. Oh wait, we ain't there yet, either.
So if I can loathe French pols as much as the French loathe ours, I must also bow to their appreciation of the importance of Art. Musically, I need only think of Satie, Debussy, Trenet, Piaf, Gainsbourg, Popp, (etc) to feel great glee at my acceptance there. Uncle sold out on Amazon France!


http://dijon.radio-campus.org/test/article.php3?id_article=306

Mike "sport" Murphy - Uncle
jeudi 2 octobre 2003, par headman

Sorti début 2003 outre-athlantique, Uncle, le troisieme album de Mike "sport" Murphy apporte la preuve supplémentaire d'un talent incontestable et pourtant méconnu.

Il aurait déjà fallu rendre hommage en 1999 à ce New-Yorkais qui était parvenu à nous reconcilier avec le solo de saxophone, dans cette miniature de pop ciselée qu'était le single The Night Surrounds. Pour cela, mais pas seulement, car quelque chose de mieux encore couvait sous les lignes et les notes : les mots touchaient au plus profond un monde qui n'a encore de cesse de tourner en rond. Sa voix resonnait admirablement sur ces quatre accords de guitare, dans un détachement et une amertume sensibles. Les disques de Mike Murphy circulaient alors d'une main experte, presque interdite, à une autre. Le monde se divisaient alors en deux catégories de personnes : ceux qui connaissaient Sport Murphy et les autres. Le nom n'était prononcé qu'après une approche stratégique, après l'analyse détaillée d'une pile de CD ou d'une rangée de vyniles. Il y a certaines découvertes plus précieuses que d'autres. Mais victime de cette confidentialité, ce secret le mieux gardé des Etats-Unis faillit poser définitivement la guitare et se terrer à jamais dans un anoymat des plus immérité. Ce sera la mort tragique de son neveu, dans les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, qui donnera naissance à ce troisième opus et à son titre: Uncle. Un disque où les compositions ne cèdent cependant pas à la tristesse ou au désepoir. A travers la vingtaine de titres qui composent Uncle, les influences, des plus respectables, restent les mêmes : cette bande parias celestes et superbes qui auront peint chacun à leurs manieres les fantasmes, la fragilité et la misère du monde : Tom Waits pour le piano d'Everybody's gone, Leonard Cohen ou Scott Walker pour le lyrisme sombre et plein d'une errance souterraine, Nick Drake et ses arpèges intimistes sur No Fair, Van Dyke Parks pour l'orchestration d' In other words. Mike sport Murphy s'autorise également quelques détours par des chemins de traverses, des chemins qu'il défriche à coup d'harmonica bancal ou de casio à 5 $ pour Behistun. Une diversité de pop/folksongs qui n' entame en rien l'unité de ce disque ni la finesse de ses arrangements. 20 titres où , malgré cette profusion, se dessine en filigrane la fragilité d'un homme et d'une vie.

Un disque à écouter seul pour rêver qu'à plusieurs millers de kilomètres, nous aussi, nous avons un oncle formidable qui n'hesite pas à declarer à l'intérieur du livret de son cd : "fuck this world"

Posted 2:28 AM by sport

Just an update, since I imagine that the absence of new entries may have worried a few folks, and my intention to actually get to email replies has not yet been realized.

The babies are doing well. They've gained back full birth weight (which is always quickly lost in the early post-wombal phaseoreeny) and then some. They're eating and breathing. Now when I say I am "eating and breathing," it's a literal description of all I actually DO anymore, but these things are huge steps for them. Now there are no more tubes on/in them and we have far more physical contact than hitherto. Now that the "Mexican Wrestlers In Space" phase is ended, we can fully assess their cuteness. Indeed! They are cute. Very cute. They are very cute babies. They'll be in the hospital a while yet; we are hoping they'll be coming home around Thanksgiving.

Shelley's recovery is going well, and after a 10-day spell of very expensive cab rides and a few lifts from obliging friends (of Shelley's), she is back behind the wheel. Today my Dad came home after his post-op stay at the nursing center. He is well. The arrival of Miles and Lily lit a bright light in him, and the stage is set for a nice holiday season. We hope.

For my own pleasure and relaxation I've discovered a great old-school barber shop (Alex's ...in Smithtown on Rte. 111) where, just yesterday, I treated myself to a full shave/haircut/hot towel treatment. It felt wonderful... over a full hour of hot lather and well-stropped razor, shoulder and scalp massage, soothing unguents and bracing Clubman. These guys were real pros, and the only thing keeping it from the Ideal was a droning television set. Should have been Peter Nero tapes.

I'm still listening to a lot of Syd Barrett. He makes more sense to me than anyone else does. I am not writing any music, even though I'll have to eventually come up with some for the album I promised KRS. Of course, they were after me gung ho for a video, which we finally delivered, and I haven't heard a word about it ever since they got it, like, 2 months ago. Makes ya feel all... I dunno... SPECIAL.
Just as people's reaction to my work has always made me feel.

I want my babies home so I can begin my new career, already 100% more successful and gratifying than the last one.

I still have email replies to write. I swear I will.
But bless those of you who've written. It means a lot to me.

Posted 3:24 AM by sport

Oy... last night's entry should indicate how tired and all-around non compos mentis I am...

First off: "2 years ago while recuperating from a broken hip, I had to break the news..."
Dad had the broken hip, not me.

And the whiskey is "Jameson" not "Jamison." I write this in shame. Irishmen should mind their grammar and their booze; it's our twin birthright.

Which, of course,brings me to the important stuff. Miles improves steadily. Lily had a downturn, then an upswing and now she's "on the quo," as they say ...uh... nowhere. I am far less acquainted with Dadhood than I am with words and whiskey, but I think I'm gonna like this. A LOT. When Lily gets obstreperous I softly sing "Hi Lili Hi Lo" and she chills right out. Miles doesn't seem to get obstreperous. (I tried to provoke him a bit and he snarled "whaddya think, I was born yesterday?") I have not yet tried singing the Who double header of "Pictures of Lily" / "I Can See for Miles," but as for now, the Kids are all right. All the Syd Barrett they've recently been hearing me play has not seemed to have any ill effect. Shelley has bonded with both of them like gangbusters.
The hospital staff is incredible. Nobody has pissed me off yet at all.
Both babies have long, elegant fingers. Too early to say which instruments, but I'm hoping for a bassoon at least.

Calls and emails have begun to dribble in. Thanks, friends. It is wonderful to talk to yez now that something GOOD has happened here and I ain't just pouring whines. I'll begin the long task of responding to all the accumulated email messages. We want to get more regularly involved with many of you so that these kids can enjoy the abundance of "Aunts" 'Uncles" and "Cousins" that I had in Holy Brooklyn. I wanna write songs and make comics and have parties and laugh a lot. Hearing Lily for the first time reawakened my soul. I can FEEL Pete in Miles. Holy shit.

Shelley is doing fine herself, and should soon be home to heal in anticipation of the babies' eventual deliverance from preemiedom. The baby shower that Shelley's condition forbade will have to be retooled into a "meet the kinder" bash once all is settled down. You can buy us stuff, sure... thanks for asking.

I am fucking wobbly. Good night. Tomorrow is a big day... lots of family converging on Stony Brook for a peek at the dynamic duo.
Wheeeeee!

Posted 2:24 PM by sport

FATHERS' DAY

Yesterday I visited my Dad in the nursing center where he is recuperating from the aneurysm surgery. This turns out to be the SAME EXACT ROOM where, 2 years ago while recuperating from a broken hip, I had to break the news that his grandson Peter had been in the World Trade Center when it fell.

Yesterday I walked down that same hall to give him the news that his new grandson and granddaughter had been born.

Yup, they're here.
Miles Peter Murphy and Lily Roberta Murphy.
October First.
Premature but doing OK …their Mom is doing well too.
God, they're beautiful.
I don't believe I'll ever feel the way I did in those few ecstatic minutes as our babies entered the world… It was like hearing notes H through Z and seeing every infra- and ultra- spectrum yet unimagined.

My Dad, who was inches from death last week, looks better than he's looked in over 2 years, and this news lit him up like a beacon. My Mom brought along a tiny bottle of Jamison's so me and he could have a wee toast. She didn't know, but that was Pete's drink.

After I first left the hospital - dazed - to get a needed night's sleep, I glanced up at a restaurant sign with a huge illuminated Tao. The balance of life: Pete called me from Korea when he was in the Air Force, asking me to design a Tao tattoo for his arm. The Yin-Yang thing, y'know. They identified his body by that tattoo. Keep an eye on things, bro.

Shelley is the strongest person I know. She is blissful now, and terrified, as is old Sport. Our babies will be in hospital for a long time, but we're hopeful for a very happy holiday season.

God, they're beautiful.

Posted 11:59 PM by sport

WHILE IT'S STILL THE DATE... I AM A DAD.

Posted 4:12 AM by sport

Thanks to those who've written so kindly since I posted that alarmed message about my Dad. It's surprising to find that so many folks still check the blog. It's become increasingly difficult to write here or in emails; I can't get it together these days. I'm sort of stuck between lives approaching their beginning and others approaching their end. Things have been very fucking hard for months. I am joyless and don't wish to whine here. I'm glad Dad made it through surgery because we could not have taken his loss right now. I'm glad some people give a shit about me and mine. Maybe I'll feel like writing something more extensive soon, but now there's just too much going on to deal. Love to all.

Posted 11:44 PM by sport

It looks like the surgery went well. It's been quite a day. We'll see.

Posted 4:06 AM by sport

Again, it's been a very long time. Life has been very bad and I'm sick of airing publicly this endless trauma. Tonight I write because my Dad is getting surgery tomorrow. His survival is decidedly uncertain. I'm terrified and filled with sorrow. A friend of mine lost her own Dad the other week, but I was neck-deep in troubles here and could offer only the most peripheral support. I don't think I'll get even that much after ignoring all my friends for all these months, and it's ok. I just love my Dad so much... I want him to meet our babies. I have nothing else to say right now. Well, just this -

Very recently I went to see a friend's band play. I got loaded. Afterwards, on the way back to the train, I stopped in for a drink all by myself in some bar. Put up some tunes on the juke, one of which was Leon Russell's "A Song For You." I love that record. The tune got to that part:
"I love you in a place where there's no space and time
I love you for my life; you are a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song to you"

This fucked me up... I began to sob at the bar... I mean SOB.
I'm cracking.
(I never did write a song that good, and it's not ever gonna happen.)
If I get back to this maybe I'll tell you how R*gan Gr*ce-V*ga found a way to make the 2nd anniversary of Pete's death even more painful for my sister and my parents. Or some of the other scary things that have made these past months so horrible. But I hope my Dad lives to see these babies so I can either write something positive instead, or just drift away from pointless self-expression altogether.

For now, I thank anyone interested enough in me or my work to check this blog at all, and send you my love and regrets for how it's all gone.

I wanted my father to see me succeed, but that never happened. He wants to hear my children call him "Grampa." I don't know what I'm still typing for... goodbye.

I love you, Dad.

Posted 11:33 PM by sport

Ah. A new record! Jerry triumphant.

I assumed anyone reading this would know of my yearly tradition, but maybe not.
Ever since I was 16 I've watched the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in its entirety.
I'm a little tired about now. It was a pretty good 'thon, though. Naw, better than that really. A damn good 'thon.

Posted 5:14 PM by sport

Some punk vocalist just finished a self-penned, telethon-specific song of such lyrical turgidity that Rodd Keith would have thrown up his hands in frustration: "This CANNOT be set to music!" Tears of hilarity still stain my cheek and I am renewed.

Red Buttons: fantastic! Doing an adaptation of his old Dean Martin Roast schtick: "Ben Hur - who said to his sister, Ben Him: 'wanna switch?' - NEVER did a telethon!"

Jack Jones with "Wives and Lovers" ...in GREAT voice and a loose, fun mood. Offered his alternate lyric: "Hey little boy, cap your teeth, get a hairpiece!" Yeah!

Gary Lewis does "She's Just My Style" AGAIN - not that I'm kvetching.

Charo with her arrangement of Ravel's BOLERO. She claimed to have "introduced" the Macarena. A fine moment in the "If so, SO?" stakes.

Gospel legend Shirley Caesar featured in a mini-set with other artists in that genre. Such a reminder: melisma with restraint, conveying actual passion, not vocal "chops." Jazzy chords providing genuine color and depth, not slick fuzak gaudiness. Funky rhythms propelling MUSIC as opposed to softcore sex-dance accompaniment. Lyrics about HOPE, not aggression nor treacle nor teenybopper lust. Bona fide passion about something truly FELT, not some interchangable style as suited to aspirin or car commercials as anything else. Dynamics serving to elevate the spirit, not pummel it into a stupor or pump it with fake adrenaline.

Now comes the home stretch.

Posted 12:25 PM by sport

Bleary...

a night of Bob Zany and the guy from "Weakest Link" filling in for Jerry. Nancy Sinatra doing a ROTTEN tune written by those douchebags from U2... a tune in "tribute" to Frank entitled "Two shots of happy, one shot of sad." Oy.

Some Russian "bluegrass" band doing a tune similar to "Blow the Man Down" ...various rock acts... an INCREDIBLE performance by some country putz doing a tune called "I Love You This Much," in which the famous 70s "silli-sculpt" statuette (of a little guy with outstretched arms) is revealed to be JESUS CHRIST! YES!!!!! This cornpone crackpot has written the anthem of the kitsch krucifix!

How can you people SLEEP through this?????

Wondering if Joe Williams is tuning in on KSDK... Claudia and Brad in LA on KCAL? Rich too? ...WBDC is on the LOVE NETWORK too; are you tuned in down in MD, Jennica? Maybe Doren will peek in on WCVB and spare a thought for ol' Sport... all my far-flung friends...

This morning's array of 'thon children's entertainment is ominous: three people in wacky costumes with huge hearts for heads, simpering enough to make Barney seem like MR T... A troupe of gay Aussie aerobics instructors called "The Wiggles" ...a large singing bear, too cloying for the Disney Jamboree. Christ. I'll make Miles and Lily watch "Forensic Files" before I permit this drek to warp their sensibilities (yeah, sure).

Jerry comes back soon.
I had an especially disappointing piece of carrot cake.

Posted 1:47 AM by sport

I return after a long absence; critters scatter as I enter. No other welcome, but who expected one? Life's been rough. But tonight, the annual ceremony.

Briefly:

Over 4 hours in... Jerry's prednisone-bloat is less shocking by now. Overall it seems more old-style: fewer Branson and rock acts, more real show-biz. Amen to that!
Julie La Rosa sounding a little shot, Steve Lawrence surprisingly strong. Charlie Callas does his auld Chevalier/Gingold mime bit, Rickles inspires acute discomfort, as ever. I'm digging it.
Reading COMIC BOOK ART during dull patches, a few poems, sipping Pernod.

The prime moment: Tony Orlando (who created the term "gimme a Rosengarten!" before my very eyes, back during the Carter or Ford administration) doing a fucking BONKERS medley of "Fire and Rain" and "Purple Rain" and ad libbing: "It don't matter what color the rain is! Take away the rain, take away the pain!" ...over and over. Changing James Taylor's lyric from "I always thought that I'd see you again" to "I always knew you were gonna be there for me again, babe!" And me not rolling tape! Shit.

Patti Page with the dullest tune I've heard in years.
Norm Crosby swell, as always.
Gotta freshen my drink.

Posted 7:07 PM by sport

Here's a selection of online reviews pertaining to my track on the KRS compilation "Mollie's Mix" …purely for the sake of scrapbooking, but there are, as always, a few parenthetical comments. I won't bother adding the urls. (Here goes…)

The compilation reaches an unexpected emotional peak with the 12th of its 21 tracks. Written by a man/group called Sport Murphy who lost a nephew - a firefighter on Sept. 11 2001 - the track "Beatles, Stepping Off The Plane" finds Murphy seeking repose in turmoil. He pretty much justifies and ridicules the entire music industry, capturing its potential for majesty, importance and excess all in a single refrain, in which he sings: "Time to show the Beatles stepping off the plane."
Aaron Davidson

(What I like about this, mostly, is being called a "man/group." It sounds like "mangrove," which is a tree, but I prefer to view the term as an implication that I am a bustling cluster of Busters; I am like one of those grubby posses in animated cartoons, the ones that move as one in a grumbling cloud of sage dust. Now, other than this, I suspect Mr. Davidson gives my novelty tune far too much credit, but since that's the opposite of what usually happens, I'll take it.)

Sport Murphy's Beatles Stepping off the Plane is like a history book of rock 'n' roll in a sense that not only covers every base of blatantly good songwriting, but also covers the history like an obituary,
Meredith Tucker

(Ms. Tucker calls my songwriting "blatantly good," which is a strange sort of phrase, but also one I'll accept with wanton gratitude. The last line (or - more accurately - the last third of the sentence) is either truly astute or totally off. I choose the former. It's a wrong read if she thinks I'm simply eulogizing rock, but not if she caught the context of the joke, as the next reviewer did)

Sport Murphy's "Beatles, Stepping off the Plane" is a far more entertaining gimmick, posing as the thought process behind putting together one of those self-important documentaries about the 1960s that all seem to follow the same outline.)
Christine Di Bella

(Now, praise be to the dread Dormammu, Ms. Di Bella GOT IT. It's nice - and woefully rare - when people "get it." Otherwise, even good reviews are suspect as evidence you did not convey your intentions clearly. Not that one must clearly convey intentions, or that enjoyment of a tune need be congruent with the composer's own design. But it must be a little frustrating to have the world laud you for inventing "Raid ant and roach spray" when you thought you'd come up with "Fox's U Bet vanilla syrup." Bear in mind, though, she says my song is nothing but a "gimmick" …which is true, but what pop music isn't? What's "Johnny B Goode," the cure for cancer?)

Sport Murphy's Uncle. Murphy made two or three albums, which I haven't heard. Anyway, a recent sampler I got (Mollie's Mix) had his song "Beatles, Stepping Off the Plane," in which the Beatle's arrival eradicates racism, the scourge of Pat Boone and pulls the bug out of Bono's ass. Sounds goofy, but what a great song. On his new album-Uncle-well, his uncle, a fireman, died in the World Trade Center and this is his response to working through the pain and loss of that. It's sort of like Springsteen's the Rising. It's not as depressing as it sounds though. There is pain, but it's more a celebration of a life and carrying on. Murphy is like Springsteen in some respects, both are great storytellers. He's a bit more adventuresome musically, like Tom Waits only slightly less so. The album has a lot of different musical styles from pub sing-a-longs to little moments of life. He's on the great Kill Rock Stars label, which means he'll never get the deserved exposure. Too bad, a great new voice in American music. Look him up on killrockstars.com to find his website and listen to some clips to see if you don't agree. I'm thinking this is someone RD might enjoy.
Matthew Smith

(Mr. Smith - unknown to me, as are the others - goes to the keyboard on my behalf several times at several sites, and the other two mini-reviews found are in accord with this longer one, from a message board of some sort. He gets special points for the ubiquity of his coverage, even if the part about how my being on KRS guarantees invisibility chills my very shit. Probably true, but then again, there are reasons Tom Waits and Nick Cave jumped the major-label ship too. Even if some psychotic at a major label signed me on a dare in some a drunken stupor, would they/could they sell me? Please. This man/group firmly believes the answer/s is/are: no/yes. They would not expend any effort to push my work, but despite what every fucking person I've ever met thinks, I COULD sell...

These records, made by dint of individual will for a fraction of the Cheese Doodles budget at a Radiohead session where the group ((not no man/group)) makes - in an atmosphere of complete, patient support - some dull-ass jizz-drift of an album, received now as genius but which will - mark my words - prove as timeless as Adam and the Ants, COULD sell. If I can manage to write that sentence without bursting my stitches, then goddammit I can sell! If you can make hear or tails of it, I'll buy you a lemon ice!

Mr. Smith calling me "a great new voice in American music" is flattering, but it's like calling McSorley's a "hot new nightspot." That isn't his fault, though.

These days, young Bob Dylan would be rotting away on KRS as well. When I say I am "not ready for the big time" or that my stuff is comparable to some piece of coil pottery, I am not insulting MYSELF, mind you. I am absolved. I am pure. I am about to begin a new album, so fuck all ye beaters and breakers, and hail ye good reviewers various. Gangway for the man/group undaunted.

Here concludes the gleanings of www.commentary on a tune trivial and obscure even by my standards. )

Posted 4:28 AM by sport

And wot the hell, as long as we're being all international-like... here's one from The Netherlands. A mag called "Heaven" ...thanks, Cees!

Mike "Sport" Murphy
UNCLE
Kill Rock Stars/KRS 383
Doorbraak!?
Er zijn een aantal redenen om Uncle, de derde CD van singer-songwriter Sport Murphy gewoon een meesterwerk te noemen. Drie van die redenen liggen erg voor de hand. Murphy heeft een prachtige, soepele en warme stem. En hij blijkt prachtige melodielijnen in huis te hebben. En, last but not least, zijn teksten gaan ergens over. Kortom: Murphy heeft alles om een belangwekkende singer-songwriter te worden. En wat mij betreft: Uncle bewijst dat hij dat is.
Uncle is, onbetwistbaar, Murphy's beste CD so far. Dat komt - natuurlijk - mede door de sprankelende productie van Murphy zelf en ene Finn McCool.
En: Uncle biedt een vocale bijdrage van Van Dyke Parks: Een heuse recitatie. Hoe je van de nood - VDP heeft nu eenmaal niet een fraaie zangstem! - een minuut of daaromtrent lang - een deugd kunt maken.
En: Niet alleen VDP-fans maar ook hondenliefhebbers hun oren moeten spitsen! Want… Ach, het artikel over De hond in de popmuziek zal ik nooit schrijven, al was het maar omdat ik niks heb met die "trouwe viervoeters". Maar bij mijn weten werd er nooit mooier geblaft op een popsong dan op Murphy's Shoo fly shoo! Een hond als ritme-instrument! En dat in combinatie met het heavenly vioolspel van de, mij verder onbekende, Meredit Yayanos.
En….. Toen was het ineens 11 september 2001, 9/11…..
Sedertdien deed Springsteen The Shining. En Steve Earle het moedige album Jesrusalem. Murphy verloor op die gedenkwaardige 9/11 de zoon van zijn zus. Een neef met wie hij samen opgroeide. Een neef die in New York City brandweerman zou worden. Uncle is voor alles het indrukwekkende resultaat van de verwerking van dat verlies.
Hoe 9/11 in de popmuziek "verwerkt" zal worden: In elk serieus overzicht daarvan zal Sport Murphy's Uncle niet mogen ontbreken.
*****
(cees bronsveld)

Posted 4:20 AM by sport

(In the previous entry I noted the importance of great critics. Apropos of this, a word from French mag "Les Inrockuptibles" with my humble thanks to Monsieur Robert)

Un Américain profond
L'un des plus grands songwriters en activité est un inconnu. Avec son troisième album, Mike "Sport" Murphy s'élève aux côtés des meilleurs mélodistes américains, de Van Dyke Parks à Charles Ives.
MIKE "SPORT" MURPHY
UNCLE
(Kill Rock Stars/Chronowax)

Il y a deux ans environ, Mike "Sport" Murphy décidait de renoncer à toute activité musicale, détruisant par la même occasion les bandes et les textes sur lesquels il était en train de plancher. Dans ce brutal sabordage se condensait toute la lassitude d'un songwriter scandaleusement négligé par les médias et le public. La nouvelle même de sa démission ne fit pas grand bruit. Elle dut tout au plus émouvoir ses proches, son label, et le quarteron d'admirateurs que ses deux merveilles d'albums, Willoughby (1999) et Magic Beans (2000), avaient péniblement réussi à fédérer.
Méconnu jusque dans la petite tribu du rock indé, qui offre pourtant souvent l'asile aux incompris de son espèce, Sport Murphy se retrouvait ainsi dans la situation humiliante du boxeur qui jette l'éponge sans avoir eu la chance de livrer un combat digne de ce nom. Depuis, l'Américain, aiguillonné par des circonstances très particulières que nous évoquerons plus loin, est reparti vaille que vaille sur le sentier de la musique. Sorti il y a plus de six mois outre-Atlantique, son nouvel album, Uncle, contient des gemmes aveuglantes comme il ne s'en extrait qu'une fois tous les dix ans du gigantesque gisement musical américain. Comme ses prédécesseurs, cet authentique miracle n'a pour l'instant rien récolté de plus qu'un aimable succès d'estime.
L'impopularité d'un type aussi inspiré est un mystère déplaisant, qu'aucune explication rationnelle ne semble pouvoir élucider. Car Murphy est bien plus qu'un songwriter un peu plus doué que la moyenne. La place qu'il occupe dans l'arbre généalogique de la musique populaire américaine en témoigne. Réalisés avec une indépendance d'esprit, une intensité expressive et un sens musical hors du commun, ses disques prolongent une noble et sinueuse ramure, qui relie les hymnes de poche du pionnier Stephen Foster, le génie touche-à-tout de Charles Ives, les mélodies à ressort de Hoagy Carmichael, le lyrisme solitaire de Scott Walker et les symphonies pop de Van Dyke Parks. Murphy, qui reconnaît aimer tous ces compositeurs "pareillement dissemblables", évolue lui aussi dans cette autre dimension où la chanson, métamorphosée en art accessible et pointu, décloisonné et universel, cesse d'être arrimée à un genre ou à une époque.
Comme son compatriote et comparse David Garland, autre songwriter d'envergure ignoré par les radars de la critique, Murphy refuse d'endosser l'uniforme d'une quelconque coterie - qu'elle soit rock, folk, classique, country ou jazz. Son ambition n'est pas pour autant d'être un caméléon, dont les transformations virtuoses nécessiteraient l'emploi à temps complet d'une costumière et d'une maquilleuse. Chez lui, les enjeux de langage prévalent toujours sur les questions d'habillage et d'emballage. De l'infinie richesse des mélodies jusqu'à la variété de texture des arrangements, de la beauté tranchante des textes jusqu'à cette voix de baryton qui bat la chamade avec une intensité digne d'un Richard Thompson, il n'est pas une parcelle de son art qui ne porte le sceau de cette inventive exigence. Le résultat est toujours hors norme, puisque ce grand idéaliste est convaincu que le songwriting n'est pas une tradition définitivement codifiée, mais un art en mouvement qui invite à tenter l'impossible, à glisser les figures les plus énigmatiques dans la logique cartésienne d'un couplet ou d'un refrain.
Les albums de Sport Murphy sont des chefs-d'œuvre d'un genre particulier. D'une flamboyante fragilité, ils sont accidentés et vibrants, comme l'est peut-être la vie de cet homme qui n'a voulu être personne d'autre que lui-même. Ils sont aussi diablement habités, puisque Murphy possède en outre cet inestimable don : il sait s'entourer. Derrière lui s'ébroue ainsi tout un cortège de semi-anonymes et de sans-grade venus de tous les horizons, une vingtaine d'hommes et de femmes qui jouent avec une générosité désarmante, comme si l'industrie du disque n'avait jamais existé, comme si la musique n'avait jamais cessé d'être ce grand plaisir partagé à quelques-uns.
Dans ces conditions, on conçoit que Sport Murphy ait pu être blessé par l'indifférence des critiques. Son mutisme volontaire n'aura pourtant pas duré : le monde extérieur s'est chargé de le rattraper par le col. Le 11 septembre 2001, son neveu Peter Vega, qui avait été élevé à ses côtés comme son petit frère, trouve la mort dans les attentats du World Trade Center - il était pompier dans une unité de Brooklyn. Ravagé par cette disparition, Sport Murphy trouvera refuge dans l'écriture et la composition. Disque chargé et dérisoire, puisque conçu "à l'attention d'une personne qui ne l'entendra jamais", Uncle est moins un hommage explicite qu'une offrande, une collection de chansons adressées à un fantôme.
Entrecoupé de documents familiaux qui tremblent comme de vieux films en super-8, ce disque profondément personnel ne met pourtant jamais l'auditeur à distance. Murphy est trop viscéralement musicien pour laisser le pathos s'emparer de ses chansons : les nuages noirs du deuil ne viennent jamais obscurcir le lumineux dessein poétique de ce disque. Les chansons de l'Américain sont simplement enveloppées d'un lyrisme nouveau, où se mêlent rage à froid, poussées de fièvre et accès de sérénité. C'est le chant d'un désenchanté qu'on entend ici. Un désenchanté trop amoureux des rares beautés et bienfaits de ce monde pour accepter d'en subir aussi les laideurs et la bêtise suprême.
Dans le livret qui accompagne Uncle, Murphy a écrit un petit texte qui en explique la genèse. Il aurait pu le conclure par un "God bless America" bien senti. Il préfère se fendre d'un lapidaire "Fuck this world", qui est moins la signature d'un nihiliste amer que d'un combattant encore prêt à en découdre. C'est aussi par des détails de ce genre que Uncle atteint des sommets que peu de songwriters américains en activité semblent en mesure d'approcher.

Richard Robert

Posted 2:08 AM by sport

A difference between Art and Science is that in Art, theory must always follow practice/proof. Music based on theory is usually only accidentally good (and has proven to be the downfall of more than one artist), but after we've discovered something we like, we can (merrily or gravely) attach all sorts of bullshit to it. It's lotsa fun. The stuff I write here is exhibit A; if I really understood what made me love Ives or some Alan Price record, I'd make things that satisfied me as fully. Instead, I write this crap, and sometimes construct music with all the earnestness of some bright kid in ceramics class. The folks will display the tree-stump pencil holder proudly, but all my appreciation of Rodin won't make it sculpture.

But this is not yet another outburst of self-flagellation.
Sheesh, whaddya take me for?
It is yet another snipe against a critic. While searching online (for unrelated reasons) I wound up on some pages collecting the writings of Robert Christgau. Now, after Slonimsky's great "Lexicon of Musical Invective," there's no reason to piss on short-sighted critics (and Mr. Slonimsky will explain why, if you're wise enough to read this hilarious little dandy of a book), and as I always say, they have their uses. Good critics are damn necessary, even. But Christgau… wow. Could he possibly be anywhere's near the egregious scumbag I've always made him out to be? No, few people could be. But even he calls himself the "Dean" of rock critics, which is horrifying in about 6 ways already. My music, I'm confident, falls way below the base level of "legitimacy" required to even rate a pan, but "Dean of rock critics" is like "der Fuhrer of supermarket circular proofreaders," so my near-loathing has less to do with any personalized resentment than with his status as the fabled One-eyed King.

(Incidentally, if you apply the "hundredth monkey" theory to the cliché about "a million monkeys at typewriters," then, eventually, all monkeys will be able to write Shakespeare. By now, through the internet and especially this blogsplosion, we see it is not so.)

Christgau writes well and always has, and his egotism is not something I oughtta be hurling stones at. He's often insightful (damn well better be) and even when he's wrong it's usually not for really, really stupid reasons. But look at this here: two old reviews for Jefferson Airplane records. A chance discovery.

Here's the first one I read…

PAUL KANTNER: Blows Against the Empire (RCA Victor) Two warnings. First, the only Airplane records I didn't underrate when I first wrote about them were Volunteers (which I loved) and the live album (which I never play). Second, Marty Balin is not present--the only reason I can discern for not calling this an Airplane record--and that makes me think that this time I could be right. I've played this a lot and feel no desire to play it any more.
B

Bland enough review. But reading it, I mistrusted the bit about "…Volunteers (which I loved)…" …just out of curiosity, I looked up his review of "Volunteers:"

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Volunteers [RCA Victor, 1969] A puzzler: I've listened many times and cannot make contact. Every time Grace lilts out "Up against the wall, motherfuckers" ( a phrase which has long since lost its currency and dubious usefulness) I want to laugh, and I don't find the instrumental cuts very inspired. Everybody else seems to dig it a lot and of course it's far from bad, but everybody may be wrong.
B

So what the fuck is this? I'm not interested enough to comb through his online archive for further evidence of such prevarication, but dagnabit!
Lyin' sack-o-shit!
And he even gives both albums a "B" rating, which means, according to his stated ratings guidelines:
"A means I like it a lot, B means I like it some or admire it a lot"

…so, not only were his responses to these records identical, but they were - or should have been, according to that guideline - rather positive. Is that what you get from the text, though?
Who has the right to pass judgment on the creative work of others? Brainy, well-paid a-holes who can't even organize their own casual dismissals coherently or honestly?
What a jerkoff.
F

Posted 1:20 AM by sport

On the other hand, my ol' chum is probably right and now it behooves me to qualify the latest round of complaints with some positivity, man. ("It behooves me" …man! Strange phrase, that. Sounds like a paraphrase could be: "This… this THING is turning me into an… an… ungulate!")

Firstly, all my loved ones are, today, alive. And reasonably well in general, all things considered. More or less. Miles and Lily were recently glimpsed through the sonar, frugging in their enviable amnioblissage like bioluminescent Monchichis. Out here, I have secured a vintage recipe (from "21" back when it was a speakeasy) for an "Absinthe Frappe." I've also taken possession of more Hai Karate cologne and aftershave. But here's something REALLY cool:

Last weekend, Shelley and I went to a local outdoor antique show since, soon, her need for increasing rest and my surgical recup would preclude such activity. We used to go to these things so often that it felt like we owned everything there and just visited it every week. By last week it had been a while, so there were some new vendors and lots of new stuff. So I snagged some cool shit (a headline from the deathbed vigil over Dutch Schultz… a small, old, hard rubber clothespin shaped like a bug-eyed, armless man… Some tin thing that made some kind of noise I liked… a rhino-shaped decanter of Avon spice cologne… the usual) and was about ready to rejoin Shelley, resting in the car. That's when I spotted a whole furshlugginer box of MAD mags from '62 through '69 along with some Cracked (sucked mostly, but John Severin was always good) and Sick (sucked always, despite Jack Davis) issues from the same era, to remind me how incredibly superior Mad has always been, over any and all competish.

I ask the kid how much and he says a buck each unless I buy a bunch or even the whole box in which case they'd be less. How much less for the box? A quarter each says mom. Now these are in GREAT shape; many are annuals, some with intact premiums like the "Mad Mobile" one can assemble so that plaques reading POTRZEBIE can circle above one's head. So I tally 'em up and it comes to 17 bucks, but I give her a twenty and say keep the change. What a deal! She's pleased that I am not a stickler for the three bucks and I'm just tickled pink to have a box of guffaws to consume at my leisure.

I tote the box not 12 feet to another table and there's a french horn in its case. No dents, no scuff, nothing. Guy says he'll take 60. Sold! Now ain't that grand! Building up the brass.

This will come into play, I imagine, on the now-it-can-be-announced upcoming FOURTH album for KRS. After stressful negotiations, Slim has managed to keep me on the label. I aim to make an album that will -oddly enough- concern itself with "consolations" of various kinds. Something constructive to put out into an apathetic world that, nevertheless, needs it. Ol' pal Thomas, on the very night I last spent as a smoker, suggested: "Why not challenge yourself by trying to make an album people will actually LIKE?" The idea of it does interest me… to prove I could - if motivated - make something possessing all the "qualities" people look for, but none of the more overt idiosyncrasies I myself enjoy but which strike the ordinary listener as "flaws."

After all, I do appreciate ordinary music as well. My embrace is vast, my tastes unimpeachable. Maybe I will make a deliberately accessible thing. Fewer songs. Songs that hit hip listeners with the approved kind of oddball touches they are not actually hip enough to do without, and which invite unhipsters into imagined realms of borrowed cool and Saturday Night Con-Temporary swank. I could do that. Maybe so. We'll see. Check back in a year.

But another little thing is that I was assigned a new David Bowie album ( entitled REALITY ) to review. I do that kind of thing, under pseudonyms, for money. Boy, it's a good album. Bowie is writing and performing in the straight-ahead-est mode I've heard from him in ages. The result, to be issued this fall, is at least as good as "Scary Monsters" / "Lodger" era work and, to me, better than anything this side of "Heroes." That's saying plenty, since Bowie knocked me flat at the Concert for New York doing that song (after a version of Paul Simon's "America" that ranks as the most gracious statement of humility I've ever seen a performer pull off) and, with it, igniting the souls of all assembled, during the darkest possible time in the lives of so many of us.

Sometimes Bowie, who became my first "personal rock star" (as opposed to inherited-from-the-brothers faves like the Stones and Dylan) with "Ziggy Stardust," seems to strain for contemporary validity by working with people like Reznor. It's not fair, but it seems that way. It's sort of like Disney World's Tomorrowland. In the 1970s, it presented a vision of the future that, in architectural terms at least, aged real bad real fast. So Disney eventually revamped the corny and anachronistic area with a "retro-futurist" style full of Jules Verne fins and golden turrets. Just like the geniuses who gutted Vegas exactly one hour before the tatters of Rat Pack glamour became au courant in the 90s, Disney's GENUINE anachronistic "future" would have been IDEAL if they'd just held on to it for one more year!!!!! Instead they came up with a "timeless" future-o-the-past schematic as stillborn as those 80s "nostalgia" mirrors (with silkscreen James Dean images) and Betty Boop-as-Marilyn cutouts that hang in ice cream parlors only to remind you that it is not now - and will never again be - the good ol' days.

Disney has pulled off a strange retro-future-that-never-was-vs-discarded-future-revitalized-as-postmodern-blown-opportunity conundrum that I promise to investigate fully as soon as my MacArthur grant comes through. But ponder on these implied Escherian bafflements quietly to yourselves as I return to the topic of Bowie. He did… well… like that.

Bowie is the eternal futureman just as Neil Young is the eternal ol' man of the mountain, provided they don't TRY too hard and just make silly stuff below their respective huge talents in a forlorn effort to seem relevant to the wrong youngsters. Bowie wrote this album more or less about New York City. Nothing too literal; it's just imbued with the town's static and frazz. Several tunes are flat out beautiful. Most are exciting and all are worthwhile. He covers Jonathan's PABLO PICASSO! Good work, mister!

Oh there's so much else to wax positive about, really. So I'll stop this and go enjoy some. Meanwhile, those of you who believe in cosmic hoodoo… please say a prayer or speak a mantra or cast a spell or whatever, on my behalf, regarding a current venture I am unwilling to mention just yet, less out of superstition than pessimism about the measure of unprecedented luck this wish would require. If it goes well (as something MUST), much of the sorrow and rancor in my soul will leave instantly.

And then I'll find BRAND NEW shit to whine about!
So focus a thought for me toward your chosen agent of serendipity, and if this happens to work I'm taking you all out to dinner.

Cheers, Rich!

Posted 2:26 AM by sport

Just a quick breakdown of the past week's events here:

My parents' house is finally getting a makeover after the fire of some months ago. My mother's in absolute misery: washing dishes in the bathroom sink, eating takeout every night, etc. Coincidentally, after several days of this chaos, a pipe burst, flooding the basement. My entire record collection - stored down there for want of any other place to keep the thousands of albums - is ruined. The flood reduced my mother to despairing tears. Since Peter's death (and the subsequent, unexplained removal of her great grandaughter from her life) she's been prone to severe depression anyway, so it's always scary when there are major disruptions.

The loss of my records sucks, but there's no use mourning it too hard. I only wish I'd sold the entire collection on eBay or something, though I'd never have done that. They meant a lot more to me than money, which is ludicrous.

Shelley has had a problem with congestion/coughing that got bad enough to warrant another hospital visit the other night. Doctors feared that the violence of her coughing fits might threaten the pregnancy, and so have put her on new meds. We'll see. Miles and Lily are, as of now, OK. Shelley remains on bed rest.

My sister is the victim of "identity theft" ...some fucks stole her credit info and such, and have been charging up a storm. In order to unravel it all she must endure a nightmare of repeated "on-hold" phone calls and the like. She discovered this crime upon returning from Ireland, a week-long visit that temporarily rejuvenated her spirits. Just returning to New York was depressing enough without these new headaches. She brought me some souvenirs: a tin whistle and a bottle of whiskey. Ahhh. Dunno about music, but I can use the booze.

I had several days of tests to try and determine why my EKG was irregular. Nothing has been discovered, but I was cleared for surgery and had it on friday. Now I have a stitched-up middle section that hurts a little less each day. I underestimated the post-op pain, though. Got a prescription for Vicodin, which I did not want but agreed to, in case of "severe pain" (but mostly for its resale value). The dickwipes at the pharmacy gave me a "generic substitute" instead. I only used one, and it kept me up all night. I don't know whether there's any significant resale value, but inquiries from prospective buyers are invited. I am also mostly resting in bed. It's maddening even for one as inert as yours truly.

That's a week in the life, boiled down to essentials, with several major omissions in the interest of the privacy of others. An old friend called the other day and chastised me. Been a while since we chatted, but he'd checked this blog to see what was new with me, and feels that my attitude is overly negative.

Fancy that.

Posted 3:17 AM by sport

Pre-op testing for surgery I'm having next week has me a little scared. Apparently my EKG was "irregular." I don't even want to KNOW what the chest X-Rays show. Hope I'm not dying… it's not a good time for that.

Some web-related stuff here, mostly (though I'm hardly an avid surfer). Upcoming weeks look to be very busy whether I'm dying or not, so - lest I forget - I wanna mention a few things.

Before I get to them, can anyone tell me what is said in the recorded announcement that comes on when you try to "star-69" a missed phone call? If it's your cousin Isidore, the message goes: "The number of your last incoming call was…" etcetera. You recognize the number, sigh "Ah jeez, Izzy" and that's that. But if it's a telemarketer or other annoyance with a block on the number, you hear "************ is unavailable or private, and cannot be reached by this method…" etcetera. I cannot make out the first part of the message. It sounds like something got cut off. It's garbled. I wanna know what and why this is and how it's permitted to continue, especially when "star 69" costs extra, so you figure they'd try to put a sort of coherent message up there. Near as I can interpret, it sounds like "peturnican call is unavailable…"
Botanical call?
Ptarmigan-tall?
Pretend I can crawl?
Pre-tourniquet pall?
Copernican oil?
Discerning Bacall?
McStrosey Oreeney?

Anyway…
Since I don't want to pay money for "blogspot PLUS" or whatever it's called, I can't put fancy hyperlinks in here like all the other blogs do. So just copy/paste these urls, fer cryin' out loud. They're worth the trouble, I think.

Rollicking Roentgeneer Jim Gray sends an exciting site… I was hoping something like this existed:
http://www.foundmagazine.com/

I myself found this one… a real bull's-eye find for tonsorial sensualists like me:
http://www.ebarbershop.com/

But here is something at least as fascinating as inspecting the personal ephemera of strangers… at least as significant as the pleasures of the barbershop: the story of a man named
WILLIAM JAMES SIDIS.

I'd heard of this guy many years ago in one of those Felton/Fowler or Wallace/Wallechinsky books collecting offbeat factoids, peculiar whatchimahoozits and obscure jimmycrackcorns. The basic, accepted version of his story can be found here: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a991210.html
(Boy genius - raised by driven parents - viewed as a curiosity at best - horribly alienated - cracks up - amounts to nothing - dies fairly young)
The story is more fully fleshed out in a chapter of Ken Smith's highly recommended book "RAW DEAL."
http://www.blastbooks.com/RAWDEAL/Sidis/fr2sidis.htm

It is obvious from all accounts that Sidis the child was probably the most shocking specimen of all-around genius on record. It's also clear that he was the object of awe, gawking curiosity and resentment (add eventual mockery and ultimate obscurity); everyone agrees that he turned his back on the life of a public braniac as soon as he could manage to do so. The general perception of his later years (meaning his post-teens up until his death while still in his forties) breaks down into two versions: either he "shorted out" or he turned his back in contempt. The former is the common view during the guy's life: the masses, who loathe "intellectuals" and idolize sports figures and other charismatic morons, want to believe that a genius child is an accident of nature… a monster. The latter is more appealing to folks like me, who respect the "Atlas Shrugged" contempt of denying those same masses the satisfactions of the freakshow and the potential benefits of such a mind applied to the common good. One notable point often mentioned to make fun of Sidis-the-failure is a book he published (supposedly his one laughable "achievement") concerning the hobby of collecting mass transit transfers. I found this magnificent; nothing appeals to me like the diligent pursuit of the utterly meaningless.

Just as those masses venerate the sexually-charged, power-laden, violence-tinged, money-stinking myths personified in sports stars, movie stars or pop stars, they detest the stereotype of the nerd. They are so desperate to distance themselves from the allegedly asexual, weak, passive, valueless dork of common myth that they create überdorks as a defense mechanism. Urkels and Horshacks are the court jesters they pretend to love even though the character, more freakishly dweeby than their deep-seated fears about themselves could ever be, is nothing but a eunuch punching bag. Currently, the genuine "revenge of the nerds" at Columbine (et al) has contributed to a vision of them as tortured (and who wouldn't wanna torture these fags, haw haw) outcasts who live for black clothes, Dungeons and Dragons and vampire novels. They're ready to snap… to go "postal" (another current-day archetype of the despised dweeb… impotent civil service worker seething with revenge fantasies) at any time.

These newer clichés provide at least an attractively dangerous component to the mix, replacing the old ones wherein the nerd was a bespectacled (from "reading too much") goofball who collected stamps, listened to unhip music and masturbated all the time. As if anything's wrong with any of those fine pursuits! The nerd may have bowled… bowling was seen as dorky until reclaimed by hipsters, who than made it safe to bowl again… but that's as close to athletics as he or she ever got. Loser. My point:
Sidis collected TRAIN AND BUS TRANSFERS? Jeee-sus! Dork of dorks!

Well, I LIKE model train layouts and comics and stuff like that. I have little patience with obsessives, but I'd rather be bored by a model train fanatic showing me a cool layout along with all his deadly dull yammer than be bored by a fucking junkie with nothing to show or share or say. I'd rather hang with a bunch of Trekkers in a bar than a bunch of bikers. But believe me, most people who'd run screaming if I said: "let me show you the Captain Picard poster I hung up in my train room" would get all fascinated (and possibly aroused) if I claimed that I finally quit heroin after it made me wreck my favorite Harley. I do not lie when I assert that, quite apart from the relative merits of their music, I'm sure I'd have a better time chatting with John Tesh than with Keith Richards.

This is why the idea of Sidis throwing it all away and only collecting transfers appealed to me. The clueless scorn of those effete douchebags at The New Yorker (who ran a "where are they now" article on the adult Sidis that aimed to humiliate him as a pathetic loser) is delicious to me as an example of how disgusting and evil and WRONG the "hip" usually turn out to be. This is high comedy. For even if Sidis was the washout depicted, what right did they have to mock him? What reason other than sheer cruelty? And, from this evidence, what could possibly justify the elitism of a magazine as eager to bring down this one already damaged person as any schoolyard bully had been?

Groupthink!!!!!!
So Sidis captured my attention… is this a hero for that "Objectivist" part of me that insists my own happiness is all I need achieve? Is he a martyr for that sentimentalist side of me that mourns a lone man driven to doom by the mob? (Don't you feel like a chump when you read some work of philosophy or ethics or psychology and think: "yeah, makes sense?" and then read a different one and think the same thing? Except they're kinda fundamentally opposed? What are you, stupid? Easily persuaded? Decide, damn you! Right? Choose! Right?)

Looking into the Sidis story online has yielded surprising results. It now seems that the guy did NOT go nuts, did NOT turn his back on pursuits of the mind and did NOT loathe the human race that shunned him. The intense publicity he received as a prodigy did turn him against publicity and fame with a fervor, but evidently he'd developed a philosophical approach based on the Native American cultures he admired (mind you, this was long before hippie appropriation of Indian lore, so put the horseshit detector on standby one minute). It told him to shun the limelight and use his talents to benefit others anonymously. Apparently he published brilliant works, -under many pseudonyms- on a wide range of subjects. These books, articles, essays and pamphlets - which are only now being tracked down and accredited - apparently comprise a shockingly visionary body of work.

It's all here:
http://www.sidis.net/

Now, this is new to me, and I dunno if these Sidis-boosting people are fanatics of the L Ron Hubbardite sort (yech), misguided admirers like some of those who took to Charles Fort's satirical/skeptical/sciosophist work (yay) and warped its woof, or whether they're simple obscurantists or even hoaxers. I think they are smart and sincere. I also think that - even if all the big claims don't really wash - this version of Sidis has checked MY oil but good. It's nice to get one's cranky prejudices shaken up by something better and higher. Maybe this "new" Sidis embodies the same qualities I supposedly admire in my hero, Ives, and maybe all my own bullshit needs to be readjusted toward a healthier and smarter view of living this life, now that I'm gonna have 2 kids to edjumacate. Whatever it is, it excites the mind on a bunch of levels.

Bear in mind also that even in the cheap "revenge" terms under which I was enjoying his story, the new version's better: he withdrew from the public eye, but not the private passions. He overcame a need for credit (success) and respect (fame), and still made work designed to illuminate our understanding of - and thereby improve our experience of - life. His reputation outlived that of every asshole that called him a has-been, and for totally BENIGN reasons! Wow. He was a better rebel than I thought I wanted him to be.

I begin to suspect that all one needs of religion, philosophy, civics and self-help can be drawn from Rabbi Hillel, a Jesus precursor (just by a little bit) who gave us the famous:
"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"
I think the priority implied by the sequence of Hillel's saying is also important. To give the political ferinstance, why must I choose to be a "conservative" or "liberal" or "reactionary" or "radical" or "libertarian" (or whatever) under all conditions and circumstances? Everyone knows it's stupid to freeze into ideology. I think, if the new picture of Sidis is correct, he was even more amazing a man than the boy genius promised to become. And not the least of the attractions here is that my impression of this man's life, mind and personality is still fluid. The only sure thing is that his tale is remarkable. How one reacts to a question mark like him... which version is the most satisfying... can be pretty telling.

Posted 4:54 PM by sport

Just got a cd from eBay: "Metropolitan Man" by Alan Price. This Newcastle songwriter is a special case; he's not an "unknown genius" or hipster favorite, nor was he especially "influential" or "innovative." Of course, as terms of praise, those descriptives are fucked; they estimate something's importance based on its assumed relation to something else. A work works. The Shirelles count because the Beatles liked them? Nah, they were great, period. Scholars argue over whether Ives was AS dissonant AS early AS claimed!? Douchebags! LISTEN! The interesting thing about my advocating Price's music is that it's apparently conventional: no nutball instruments or harmonic oddities a'tall. "Classic rock" fans would probably take to it more easily than would avant-gardeners or novelty-seekers. It's individuality is not announced by any trappings of unconventionality.

No, Price was not an influential innovator. He's just responsible for some GREAT records. Price is mainly remembered as a founding member of the Animals (originally the Alan Price Set), one of the grittiest British Invasion acts. He left the band mainly out of reluctance to tour (to fly), embarking instead on a fairly MOR career restricted to Britain. (bandmate Chas Chandler later managed Slade - another band I adore - who likewise went mostly unheard over here) An early supporter of Randy Newman's songs, Price did well for himself in Blighty through and well beyond the sixties, but I'm pretty much only interested (here) in the stage of his career spanning 1973-75. When I was working at Sam Goody records as a teen, I met a guy named Charlie who loved the three albums Price cut in that period. Charlie and I became good friends… camping trips and concerts, me turning him on to Waits and him turning me on to Price. Those of you familiar with my older songs may recognize a few tunes written in tribute to him: "The Mighty Sun," "Wildflowers" and other references here and there. A warmer, kinder guy never lived, and we shared many happy times together before a tragic affection for the needle and the bottle did him in at the age of 33.

Three albums, the first of which is a film soundtrack: "O Lucky Man." Director Lindsey Anderson was making a sequel to his surrealist/absurdist film "If," and asked Price to serve as Greek Chorus… not only singing his own commentary on Malcolm McDowell's antics but appearing ONSCREEN singing them. The action would pause for sequences of Price and band doing a song in a completely neutral setting unconnected to the story. Later in the film Price and band temporarily figure into the story, and the effect is like Serling suddenly turning up as a character in a TZ episode. Odd, but it works. The movie is a picaresque about a young opportunist trying his hand at traveling salesmanship. It's got a very English combination of eggs-n-sausage drab realism and Swift allegory, which works better than it should over most of the long film. But it's the songs I mean to discuss.

The soundtrack album to this film is as unusually short as the movie is unusually long. Several pieces of incidental music further decrease the song-song payload. But the handful of songs is concentrated like sen-sen and just as bracing. Instrumentation is ordinary rock combo w/piano stuff, right in line with the band as seen in the film: proletarian players surrounding a stogie-chomping Price at the keys, looking, in his cap and leather jacket, more like a news vendor than a rock star. Price has a sort of "thick" voice, like John Cale, Gary Brooker or Warren Zevon, and this quality lends a further sense of grown-up-ed-ness to these cynical tunes. The melodies are sturdy, the words direct. He uses a device of opening the album with the title cut and closing it with a different version of same, which may be seen as a byproduct of the music's assigned purpose except that he does the same thing on the next, non-soundtrack album, "Between Today and Yesterday." However he arrived at this technique (used also by Neil Young on "Tonight's the Night" and "Rust Never Sleeps," the Beatles on "Sgt. Pepper" etc.), it works.

"If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely, you are a lucky man" it begins. An electric piano vamps under the close-miked vocal. It's a no-frills arrival of a no-nonsense voice. I take the implication as: If you have yourself convinced that someone else give's a rat's ass about you, then buddy, here's to you and your enviable pipe dream. Brilliant one-liners are casually flung: "If knowledge hangs around you neck like pearls instead of chains…" This very English songwright (credit for that very useful word goes to David Garland) is up-ending that most English of gasbag poets, Kipling. The fatherly advice of "If" is now the wizened warning of your barstool neighbor, who kept his head while all about him lost theirs, saw the universe in a grain of his tequila salt and it still meant bugger-all.

The song's reprise adds a new section about the round-and-round routine of living. It's not nihilistic, just world-wary and deeply skeptical, contrasted against intensified music. Between the fatalist shrug of the words and the propulsion of the music is where the magic occurs. There's hope in it, somehow, without any promises or fancies or fake rock-n-roll toughness. These versions sandwich a series of lean slices o' life.

"Look Over Your Shoulder" - an assurance, set to a jaunty melody, that happiness is always short-lived. It recommends that you enjoy it all despite wariness, and remain suspicious despite happiness. It ends on an observation regarding a young man's dream of a better life: "without that dream, you are nothin' nothin' nothin' …you'll have to find out for yourself that dream is dead." As if this isn't dire enough, he winds up the track warbling: "Deee-aaaad! lalalala! Deeeeaaaad! Lalalala!" He makes a joke of cynicism itself.
"Justice" ("next to Health is Wealth, and only Wealth will buy you Justice") - obvious enough, with a comment on folks who "trust and rely on the goodness of human nature." They are fools, but whereas the Judge views that foolishness with contempt (see Judith Sheindlin), Price views it as an aspect - winning, if not admirable - of doomed sweetness in the ordinary people to whom he feels kindred.
"Changes" - in which lyrics like "Love must always change to sorrow, and everyone must play the game" are set to the melody of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." This is both sardonic in the obvious sense and genuinely pious: a prayer of broken faith, replaced by clarity. You lose your happy ending myth; you gain humor. For Price it's a raw deal but the only deal there is. The alternative is taking the gas pipe. It's "Is That All There Is" without the cabaret pretense and ennui.
"Poor People" - A fairly shocking dismissal of the lot of the common man. The stance is that of a Sammy Glick or a Gordon Gekko: tsk tsk… poor people are screwed by their own reluctance to go and get theirs. It's the film character's hustler viewpoint, but it's also a daring stance for Price, where he acknowledges the kernel of truth within an odious point of view. This is evidence, perhaps, of what he learned from his affection for Bob Dylan (we can watch Price hanging around Bob, absorbing all he can in "Don't Look Back") and especially Randy Newman. He takes on a role we'd rather not admit to empathizing with, and tries to turn it back around into advice for the same poor losers it dismisses. To me this aspect of the song trumps Newman, transcending mere sharp satire to include possible redemption within the small, shitty, limited world depicted. None of this nonsense really matters, he says; pretend everything's fine and it might as well be true. This IS the secret to life, I suspect.

Back when I really did have spiritual faith, I arrived at it, from absolute faithlessness, via sheer desire: I prayed consciously to nothing, begging it to convince me it was something. It worked very usefully until September 11, 2001. My blasphemies in the blog are not aimed at the faithful of any stripe, but against groupthink and the collapse of my own little credo. Humor is a countermeasure to all the not-god that comprises most of every religion; it cannot diminish faith. In a song of mine entitled "Rise" I made reference to Price's lyric here. He sings: "Smile while you're makin' it. Laugh while you're takin' it. Even though you're fakin' it, nobody's gonna know." I believe in the idea, and I believe in and admire the ingenious play of opposites Price engages in all over these tunes. He doesn't solve confusion; he just uses it. In the usually one-dimensional form of pop music, which usually sells bummers or bromides, this is a coup. The horse sense wisdom of: "A man's got to make whatever he wants and take it with his own hands" doesn't sit too well with youngsters eager for epiphanies in their tunes, but skin me if it isn't true… and, at this late date, inspiring.

So this album doesn't astound like Pet Sounds or Innervisions; it SATISFIES. It satisfies so fully yet so modestly that the art is easy to miss. Through the years it has remained a favorite, and I don't have to make allowances for it (like a fair amount of the other stuff I enjoyed at the same time) as I get older and more dark-spirited. It reveals more, in fact. It was a good-sized success for Price, and he was emboldened to tackle the more autobiographical "Between Today and Yesterday." This time he didn't have the handy device of serving as commentator within a fictional framework. Now he had to account for his words as directly confessional. Much of it isn't too far a cry from the previous album's "My Home Town," with music hall Britishness backgrounding glimpses of nostalgia and regret, but without the filmic context it all feels closer to the bone.

"Jarrow Song" was a radio hit. This was probably the peak of Price's career in pop terms. In it, Price refers to a march on London undertaken by poor North Englishmen looking for work in the '30s. This was his father's generation, and Alan eventually places himself in the tale, imparting the broad sense of lives turning over into generations without sacrificing intimacy: "My name is little Alan Price; I tried to be nice all of my life. But I'm afraid that up to date it doesn't work." It's the nugget of the "Yesterday" side of the album, which also includes a piano/vocal take on the title cut. I'll get to that masterpiece later, but presenting the song as a plain acoustic ballad here and a huge orchestral showpiece at the end of the "Today" side works masterfully, even if it sounds like a pat framing device as I describe it.

Throughout Price's music there's the same sense (to Americans) of England one gets from much of Ray Davies' work: the black and white drear of Tom Courtenay's "Billy Liar" as viewed by a modern Dickens, along with that "son of a blue collar man" thing that Springsteen used to mine. To this Price adds an especially wary version of the confessional. The heart on his sleeve is just inches above an unmistakably clenched fist, which is another thing he's honest about. He's damaged, and not at all coy about saying so, nor vain about it like some preening Trent Reznor who acts like a messiah for discovering squalor and hatred. He is lost, but he's shit-sure that you ain't any more found. He bears witness only to what he's truly KNOWN, and he speaks his hopeless wishes out loud to the rain and the brick walls. As with most survivors of poverty who've found some success, he romanticizes the bad old days even while recognizing that they were impossibly harsh. Side one is full of this yin-yang.

Side two is, of course, the same grim view, uncushioned by the comforts of memory. Songs like "City Lights" are desolate vignettes of loneliness and despair coexisting with compassion and hope. This is, of course, how many real people live their real lives. The wolf sits, big and mean at the door, but the bluebird still sits on the windowsill. It's TRUTH in song: as rare a thing as can exist. His voice cracks as he tries to convince himself to believe, and tries to suppress that same belief lest it blind him to the ever-present dangers of life. There are no dim recipes for living (ya gotta be strong, you gotta be this, ya gotta be that) or platitudes of any pop-music sort (don't stop believin'!). You go on trudging from can to can't. That's all. Setting this view to music is victory enough in my view; setting it to music that makes the spirit soar and smile is art. In "City Lights" Price delivers lines like: "The city eats the children up and spits them out before they're almost grown." This reads as an unremarkable near-cliché, akin to lines in "Poor People" like "No use mumbling… no use grumbling… life just isn't fair." It's how (and when) he sings these lines that lifts them into poetry. I think of those basic bits of parental "you'll understand when you're older" wisdom that sound hoary, and too obvious to kids. Stuff you roll your eyes over for years and years until one day in the middle of life (or later) you go "Aha!" Price delivers many "aha!" moments. I also note that the "before they're almost grown" line sounds like some strange-ass syntax, but I hear it as a reference to Chuck Berry's "Almost Grown." In other words, the teenage angst rock music is itself built on can not apply to kids who never really get to be kids or teenagers.

Nobody knows the infinite variety of deviations, derailments, booby traps, temptations, lies, crimes and shocks to the system that an old lady knows. She's seen how truly similar they all are. The "fragile" granny has raised many boys and girls, and attended the raising of many more; nothing is novel to her eyes. She's weathered storms that would wreck many a hardy young narcissus, but comes on as meek as a kitten, wise enough to protect your vanity by never letting on how fucking naïve you really are. The poses of rockdom are all ridiculous, once seen in this light. More than anyone I've heard, Price has the granny overview and the smart youngster's respect for the cost and value of that wisdom.

I embrace this album for the beauty of the music and performances, but also because I know something about a soul stuck between today and yesterday; it's a feeling of being perpetually on the brink of your own life, even as it slides on by. The cover art depicts a weeping teddy boy, grappling with all this as his dreams shrink away across a sky glimpsed through a window.


Since I can't examine every song now, I'll skip right to the title track. It is one of my all-time, motherlode, killer-diller, Katy-bar-the-door super mindfucks. The first time I played it for my brother Brian, he wept cascades and demanded I turn it off, only to demand its reprise immediately and repeatedly. We sobbed, just like Charlie did when he'd play it. Sometimes Price seems like a compelling drinking buddy, drawing you in with vivid tales and rowdy asides. In this song he climbs into your fucking soul and rips up every scab there.

Unlike "O Lucky Man!" - in which the title song's two versions featured different sections and "feels," the two versions of "Between Today and Yesterday" are the same musically, lyrically and "feel"-wise. The first is stark and the second is orchestrated, but apart from the sophistication (and the baggage) suggested by the orchestra, the main difference is implied by the song's placement on the album's two sides. This is one illustration of what made lps such a different experience than cds; the work is in two "acts," and some artists consciously used this in the construction of the work. Here, Price brings it in as the third song. This makes the first two songs a sort of prologue, holding back this powerful tune until we're situated in the world of Price's father (and his own childhood… of course, childhood begins several decades before our birth, in the form of the circumstances and family lore into which we arrive. Parents and other significant adults surround our early experience with vivid discussions of their earlier lives, and it's easy to underestimate the ways in which that shared world shaped the environment we're in and our view of it. A 20 year-old is facing tomorrow with about 40 years of experience, helpfu and otherwise).

"You'll never see his mother's face or feel his father's hand…" Price begins. This is a valuable device when used in confessional songs: the blockade. First off, Price creates a third person distance ("his" mother) even while creating personal intimacy by addressing "you" directly. The result is a powerful emotional tension unachievable with a straight "me, I" perspective. Still, there's never a doubt that Price is talking about himself. The evasions of art. Then, in this lyric, he starts by telling you what you missed out on. It's a ploy like "I never believed these Penthouse letters until it happened to me…" but it disarms our complacent expectations and promises something bona fide. By telling us we'll never see his mother's face, etc., he's reminding us of how unique each person's memory of home is: we all know that it s impossible to convey the exact flavor of our deepest loves and cherished memories. (This inability to communicate is precisely the human tragedy, just as "Poor People" was the secret of life, and ain't you glad you read this now?) In this way, Price makes omitted specifics communicate the universal: we have to fill in the details, so we fill them in with those we know. That's where the hook sinks into your heart.

"Who can you show when you succeed in never-never land?" is the second line. I'm not gonna get into line-by-line analysis, but this one should be noted. Since Price clearly considers the pop music world "never-never land, " in the reprise he seems to be making that reference to his own (dubious, in his eyes) success. But this first version is - we can assume by virtue of placement - his father's song, not his own. In England in those days, poor people lived "on the never-never," a slang term that refers to what are now called "rent-to-buy" stores. You take home a piece of furniture or an appliance that you'd never be able to afford on your pitiful wage, and "pay it off" in weekly installments plus interest. Plus INTEREST. This usurious arrangement usually results in repossession or, at best, eventual ownership of a now-devalued object for which you wound up paying ten times normal retail ("Poor people stay poor people…" "…only wealth will buy you justice").

By making the exact same song serve as his signature as well as his father's, Price is asserting both pride and humility. Pride that he is like his father and the other people of his hometown. Humility that for all his efforts to succeed and to grow, he sees himself as nothing more than a working-class Geordie tricked up in fancier garb (the orchestra/fame). Maybe even a little bit fake. I could belabor points like this for paragraph after paragraph, but I'm only trying to suggest the richness and craft of Price's work. The real impact of this song has nothing to do with such subtextual, "maybe-so" stuff; it's the raw emotion. In the piano version it's the nakedness that hits you, and in the orchestral version it's the desperation Price projects from the gorgeous colors of his symphonic backdrop. I can't choose between them.

Each begins with that sense of sorrowful reminiscence over the beautiful melody: a straight up ballad with little Ray Charles blue tinges in the piano part. The chorus gives us the simple, agonizing fact that "between today and yesterday is like a million years…" and once he's said this aloud, he grows increasingly pained. Eventually he gets to a frantic, screamed "Beware! The mirror on the wall gets less friendly with passing time!" It's blood-curdling.
"Enough! I said Enough! Just draw the shade!"
Maybe it reads as melodrama, but it sounds as frank as any performance I've ever heard. In fact, it is palpably NOT a performance. It is a human being in absolute agony, somehow turning that agony ecstatic through the temporary power of the artistic act. (His temporary release is made permanent and sacramental by giving us the song on a recording through which we can repeatedly relive this moment. It's why I love artists even though so many seem like nothing but pose or product. There's no doubt that a lot of music …even great stuff… is just sales fodder, but some isn't, and when that happens, wheee!)

The music reaches its climax on the closing lines:
"Please! Let me drink black wine!
Yes, I know it's the ending."
Despair.
He ends it all with a cracked whimper, a ninth that just hangs there in the air a moment, then floats to the ground like a dead leaf. For me it is so exhausting that the only cure is to hear it again. It lifts me up and slams me to the ground. Through it all, the orchestra plays much the same role as it would in a film, adding layers of shading behind the foreground action. It ain't just fancy dress or showy dressage; in the final emotional surrender of the second version, it sounds triumphant. That this collapse should sound like a triumph is nothing unique, of course. That's the kind of legerdemain that keeps us thrilled about music. But Price pulled off a good one, I'll tell ya. The implosion we're witnessing is producing the glory of that orchestra: it's the massed might of one weak human soul, revealed at a catastophic moment when modesty, self-protection and etiquette no longer matter.

Now, "Metropolitan Man" is new to me as an album. Charlie hepped me to the galloping "Papers" years ago: a great driving rock tune about what a total bunch of nonsense comprises the daily journals. After much entertaining sarcasm, Price confesses that he does love the naked ladies on Page 3 of the British rags. "Fools' Gold" is a tender post mortem on the career and friendships of the Animals, kicked off by some quietly stunning solo organ work (not the kind of "solo organ work" I'm usually on about, nyuck nyuck). The final tune, "Drinker's Curse" is a deliberately whiny barroom ballad with enough wee bits o' discord to please any fans of early "Piano Has Been Drinking" Waits. Naturally, Charlie and I often played both tunes during our frequent 12-rounders with Bacchus, but I gotta say; all these years later, Alan's merciless take on the narcissism of the alcoholic (not that I'd know) holds up truer than Tom's romanticism and high low-theater. As for the rest of "Metropolitan Man," time will tell which other tunes stand out, but I'm grateful for my rejuvenated interest in Price's work, and all the pleasure this fresh listen has yielded.

It all makes me want to revisit Alan Price albums to which I gave short shrift in my callow youth. All these words are just recognition that there is work that you have to grow into. As much as I dug Price in my 20s, the years have deepened my appreciation of his legitimately adult rock music. It's a scarce commodity, especially welcomed by an aging music fan, not to mention its Arne Saknussemm utility to an aging songwright. In the astoundingly insipid musical landscape these days (and I'm not just talking about shit like Christgau's pick Justin Timberlake or Fifty fuckin Cent), anyone hungry for SONGS might want to look into Alan Price. If I had a pint of Newcastle Brown right now, I'd toast him. And Charlie O, too …you are missed, amigo.

Posted 4:58 AM by sport

I'd better keep this brief; it's always a mistake writing email in the state I'm in, so blogging must be that much more dangerous. So... briefly....

A few Cuervo and Tropicanas: cool and delicious... as dense as I needed and as refreshing as I wanted. A little absinthe as a topper... the best use of that drink discovered thus far. I know the ceremonial thing is irresistable (probably the main reason I ever dug that hoax, cocaine) and moderation is usually the byword of pisslings, but a few KER-POW tonguefuls of the green fairy will do rare wonders, once one's been set up with liberal doses of trusty tequila. No need to overdo.

Before I got up to hit the loo and dash this off, I lay supine next to a beautifully slumbering Shelley (featuring Miles and Lily). My head was - still is - softly swaying in the agave/anis haze like some slo-mo replay of an already half-abandoned polynesian afterthought. On the TV screen is a VERY young Candy Samples, involved in an unlikely linguo-dildactyl mammembrace with some bearded blue Rondo ala spunk who was probably tragic history by 1972. Candy looks superb, especially though the faded and scratched 16mm film, set to jerky muzak approximations of tunes such as "Just Like A Woman" and Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"

I am tastefully daubed with genuine Hai Karate cologne. It smells like the first ride in God's brand new Ford Gremlin with a bouquet of Farrahhead orchids sitting in the back seat next to the hot samosas.

I'm hard as times in '29. Diamond Cutter.
I'd fuck a knot in a tree. I'd... I'd...
I feel SOOOOOO FUUUUUCKING GOOOOD.
And that's all for tonight...
never let is be said that I only write bummers.

Posted 2:33 AM by sport

Instead of blogging I should be emailing friends, just to see if I have any left. By now there is almost no contact with others… no phone calls, email messages, visits… nothing. The nerve!
A few kind folks kept emailing me to see how things were going, until my lack or replies (or maybe the content of this blog and what it suggests about my mind) sent them packing.
This former social butterfly is cocooned, awaiting his metamorphosis to a daddypillar. I would wager the current readership of this blog comes in at about 2 regulars and 6 ever-dwindling occasionals. So for these stalwarts, or for the (entirely superfluous) record, or for the sake of simulating a conversation with somebody… anybody… in the outside world, here's what's been going on.

Shelley, after a number of very scary incidents, was placed on strict bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. Since this has been going on we've had no big incidents, and things seem to be going well. She is still suffering various woes: weakness, nausea, etc, but nothing unusual (all-consuming and depressing, but all within the normal range of possible bummers, all at once), and the kids are well. We saw them on an "anatomy scan" last week. All the specs the doctors check for come up "normal" …which makes this the only time in my life I've thought of that word as anything other than an insult.

Miles Peter Murphy is a rambunctious lad with a certain raffish style and a firm gaze. His interests include spinning in the amniotic fluid like a friggin' Whizzer and ramming against the walls of his room like the cartoon guy in the "Take On Me" video.
Lily Roberta Murphy is a thoughtful lass of rare elegance and sophistication. When not cocking an eyebrow at the antics of her brother, Lily gargles melodiously. Her main complaint about gestating is the lack of reading material.

These may seem to be sexist sketches of the kids, but so far this is how things seem to be. So wife and children are reet and my folks are also in reasonably decent health of late. The urgencies of recent life seem to have quieted down for a bit, so I won't complain about cabin fever. Bored at home all day is better than anxious at the hospital all day. However, one does get a little stir-fried. So… what to yammer about? TV again? What else is there?

**MANDATORY KULTURAL KOMMENTARY **

Just caught a bunch of a new production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" on channel 13. This old warhorse, silly as it is, contains the snappiest work of that clammy little twat, Andrew Lloyd Webber. I devoured the original album when it came out; one of my Holy Name teachers played it in class and it captivated me like nothing else save "The Point" and the Bee Gees. Two friends and I attended a production in London almost ten years later, and I starred in a local production 6 or seven years after that. I now view it as an especially interesting piece of "eternally contemporary" theater, in that the hoary fable it's based on can always be staged in a way suitable to the fads of a given era, thanks to the simple music and nebulous message of the piece. In the early 70s it was imbued with the vibe of the Jesus/Hippie craze, which also brought us "Godspell" and hits like "Spirit in the Sky" and "Oh Happy Day." By the time we got to the West End it had become an exemplar of the burgeoning "pop musical" trend that was to hold sway for 20 years and counting. These are hambone operettas reliant on repetition and melodrama, with lotsa flash, Vegas "class" and over-emotionalism. Public Domain sources for plot are also the norm. This new, televised version seemed to have a strong homoerotic undercurrent, with much "Rent" posing, male groping, pec ("-toral" not "-ker") baring and "American Idol" vocal delivery. Jesus Christ Superstar: a cheese for the ages.

****TANGENT****
While people do subject Shakespeare and others to constant "updating" and lame-ass point-forcing, it's always goofy despite what the Times says. And it doesn't work at all for Broadway shows. We're used to "Richard III" as nazi (or contra or teddy bear or whatever wrongheaded high concept is underway), but a Broadway confection doesn't and shouldn't have the time-earned solidity to bear such tinkering. We're talking zippy plots, not eternal verities: can you imagine an "Oklahoma!" set in Kosovo? Why would you? It's a topic too large to cover here, but the same principle is at work in "Golden Throat" recordings. We can laugh at Tony Bennett butchering "Eleanor Rigby" because rock music is reliant on "cool" and Tony's version was anything but. However, Tony is a great singer anyway, and we have established a collective affection for him, which allows the episode to seem funny. Now, Rod Stewart butchering "I'll Be Seeing You" is not funny because first of all, he's ruining a truly GREAT song, not some pop artifact beloved (and run into the ground) only by boomers. Secondly, he just plain SUCKS and always has. Liking him in the first place requires a deterioration of aesthetic standards severe enough to preclude any appreciation of the song, the genre, singing or music itself. Such charmlessness can not provoke amusement, only boredom.

Rock fans in general misunderstand other kinds of music almost COMPLETELY. Their views are far more ridiculous than the long-mocked dismissals of rock by people like Mitch Miller and Steve Allen. Those were philistines of a sort, but most rock listeners (and their hiphop or electronica successors) don't even rate a three-syllable epithet. But they are not the only chowderheads about. A similar effect to the Rod-ruins-standards syndrome occurs when, on two recent cds, "jazzmen" or country musicians take on Brian Wilson. The former ply a trade as useful in modern life as that of a candlemaker: a fine trifle for entertaining tourists in resort towns, but t'ain't nothing that really matters (mind you, I mean these biz-jazz dicks with the soft-funk rhythms and shiny 6-note chords that offer as much savor as a ricecake. I'd never, ever put down the noisome Knitting Factory brigade of cat-stranglers, not with my appetite for musicians kicking up a repellent ruckus. They are my kind of jerkoffs). The latter SHOULD embrace the archaic and anachronistic, but insist on sounding "contemporary" …which, in the world of current-day country, means to try and sound like some mid-70s Asylum Records act. An even blander Glenn Frey? Oh man.

How did I wind up on this subject?
Yikes… digressions inside digressions!

***RETURN TO TOPIC***
Anyway, back to "Jesus Christ Superstar." Now, the production I was in represented another kind of "fromage pour tous les âges" …the crummy-but-earnest suburban amateur musical. See "Waiting for Guffman" if that world is unknown to you. My buddy Pat Redding dared me to audition, knowing that I'd always wanted to act onstage but feared my own incompetence. Turns out I was right, but what the hell. I got the lead based on my singing voice and perhaps my long hair (at that time I was also pretty skinny). My dance audition was ludicrous, but the director had ideas for the Jesus role which - thank Thalia -n- Tepsichore - didn't include a dancing messiah. Pat landed the part of Judas, a much cooler role, well-suited to Pat's Burt Lancaster presence. I was persuaded to lighten up on the smokes for the duration of the show, and was tutored in vocal support and proper breathing. I soon forgot these techniques, but trust me: for those shows my voice sounded as good as it ever would. From the evidence of videotape, however, my acting and physical grace started out woeful and plummeted to the infinite depths of "yee-owch" from that point onward. By now I'm a sort of latter-day Larry "Bud" Melman, minus the popular appeal.

**NOSTALGIA-LACED-WITH-BILE SECTION**
In those days I lived with a scold of a pill of a shrew named Sandy, who gradually taught me just how monolithic hatred can become. Apart from carping endlessly about my participation in the show (methinks she wanted me to spend that time working a THIRD job so we could move to a nicer slum as she attended grad school… Lesson: fuck the work ethic; it is always a tool for achieving someone else's happiness), this bundle of joy shouted "Turn it down… I have to get up early tomorrow!" from the bedroom as Jim, Willy and I listened to our very first record for the very first time. Each JCS rehearsal was a blessed excuse to get away from her, resulting in cherished memories of a drunken Judas, an inebriated Jesus and several blotto apostles tearing off many a ripe chunk of night and chewing it down to a pulp. These were some of the happiest times of my life. Along with my nightly carousing with the beloved Redding lads and company, one post-performance binge with Peter and LaGrutta down at Lake Ronkonkoma will remain one of the treasured jewels of memory. Lesson: It ain't the big event, it's the incidentals, so turn away from the spectacle and enjoy the boon company while you can. Your favorite people leave the soonest.

(Eventually, of course, I got out of that relationship and formed a band called the Skels. This doomed, musically dubious escapade was in effect a dating service for dweebs. It brought me Shelley, so that's reason enough. Pete met and married his own scold of a pill of a shrew, named R*gan Gr*ce. He died just as he was developing the clarity to leave her and - one assumes - find his own equivalent of my Shelley, in whose love and goodness I find a counterweight to the bitterness I reveal so uncomfortably and regularly here. Anyway, as the wealthy fire widow wallows in an obscene delusion of status bought and paid for by Pete's blood and his mother's tears, I celebrate one night spent under the stars, sucking stogies and cheap beer with these best buddies. I was still dressed as Jesus the C and LaGrutta was just beginning to perfect his Tony Soprano persona. Pete still loved me. Hours of easy laughter beyond any estimate of worth. Paul is now wedded to Julia, who's a complete delight.)

**FROM CRINGE-WORTHY TO QUEASY-MAKING**
One of the odder sidelights of doing that show was a sexual proposition I got from a couple. They were true "Jesus Freaks" in the Bernie Taupin "Tiny Dancer" sense AND the Rick James "Super Freak" sense, and wanted me - in full King of Kings drag - to introduce my loaf to her fishbasket as he watched in reverent awe, presumably rubbin' his rosary. Some "Prince of Piece" I turned out to be… I declined. Lesson: when stuck with a less-than-tolerable partner, don't miss a single opportunity to engage in deviant sex with others. Your future story will be a far better tell, and you'll feel vindicated anyway once your mismatch collapses. Seriously, there's no way I could have done it.

**BRUTAL SELF-ASSESSMENT #3306 (yawn)**
Reflecting on that performance (me as JC, not my non-performance with Jim and Tammy Boinker), I acknowledge that mine is a talent eminently suited for local bar bands and local musicals. Painful as it is to admit, my awkward, idiosyncratic "gift" is unfit for the big time. Many have learned this for themselves early enough to move on to productive lives including weekend hobby artiste-hood. Not me. Lesson: ah, nothing useful. I should have enjoyed these things more while I could, without the anxieties of wanting to do something "real" that led to my regrettable career. Ah jeez. Every stream of thought flows toward that same sewer. Can't unbreak that shattered snowglobe, so let's play a tender lament and quickly bail.

**PHILOSEMITIC OBSERVATION**
One disturbing aspect of the new, televised JCS was the way the black-trench-coat-and-hat chorus/crowds, who initially seemed like a fashion designer's idea of "noir" extras, became silhouettes of apparent Hassidim later in the show, taunting Pontius Pilate to crucify the bastard. It was so blatant I was stunned. Again, though, this Jew-hatred is right in line with the times we live in.

**RUDY GIULIANI SEZ: **

"President Bush has asked me to head the United States delegation to a conference on combating anti-Semitism, held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which begins tomorrow in Vienna. The meeting is a direct response to the worldwide surge in anti-Semitic violence. Last spring, physical attacks against Jews in France were occurring at a rate of 8 to 12 a day, with 14 arson attacks on synagogues in a two-week period. In Russia, signs reading 'Death to Jews' were placed along highways and rigged to explode if anyone sought to remove them."

**POLITICS. FEH.**
Look at the countries named in Rudy's commentary on European anti-Semitism (which is really Jew-hatred): Russia and France. Add Germany, which is to Jew-hatred what Hershey Pennsylvania is to chocolate-themed amusement parks. These three stooges (Moeski, Lareé and Schëmpf) were exactly the international vanguard of the "USA stay out of Iraq" movement. Hmmmmm. Not that I am waving the banner for Bush's war: I supported the objective (in large part) but mistrusted the mission (in large part). I still can't make head nor tail of the thing.

I do believe that Vietnam was a debacle of astonishing proportions, and that pricks like MacNamara sent American kids to the slaughter for years of pointless engagement in a war we didn't have the will to win. I also believe that the "larger" war to contain (and then eradicate) Communism was critical and ultimately successful. I don't expect this war against fundamentalist Islamic terrorism to be neat and tidy, and I don't expect businessmen of this (or any) administration's "ethical standard" to restrict all military action to that specific end.

I expect lies, manipulations and fuckups, just as I expect to see, after a disgusting election campaign, a complete clown either elected or re-elected. But I hope this country is still standing and fairly secure when Miles and Lily are old enough to have to contend with it all, and I don't think the Left has any credible plan toward securing that goal. Neither does the Right, but they are less hesitant to kill motherfuckers, and all that motherfuckers understand is death, sorry to say. I fear another morass of "Hawk vs. Dove" nonsense like the one we had 3 decades ago, and anyone siding with the Jew-haters of Europe (and the America-haters of Europe and the Middle East) is as foolish (to use a kind word) as the Jane Fonda types of that era. Conversely, anyone condemning a sincere call from American citizens for accountability on the part of their government is no better than the cartoonish "America: love it or leave it" bozos of that era.

This means I can't reasonably make THIS or THAT statements as if I'm absolutely sure of the truth.
What an embezzle! What a ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! My political opinions are idiotic, for sure.
But I don't cotton to all the Jew-hating, and I'm not wrong about that.

**BACK ON TOPIC**
I only did one other show, years after JCS. This was a local production of Eric Bogosian's turdball, "Suburbia." I played "Pony," a rock star visiting his old neighborhood and gloating to his ne'er do well pals, who are still idling around the 7-11 store. The irony is, of course, agonizing. I again sucked as an actor, but something about the experience led me to get back on the horse musically, and so I made an album called "Willoughby," which led to all my further success. It's all in God's plan, friends.

While my acting in "Suburbia" bit significant ass, at least I didn't commit any blunders comparable to those in JCS. These included:
*Showing up late for the Last Supper, which opens act 2. The apostles had to vamp on the opening number for several minutes while Judas ran to find me in the dressing room, shooting the shit with a Roman soldier.
*Running out onstage to take my bow on opening night, forgetting that the cross was standing there and I ought to duck. I slammed my head against the thing and stumbled to the very edge of the stage, where I shrugged a goofy shrug as stars circled my skull.
*Completely blanking on my big solo number "I Only Want to Say…" as the orchestra conductor looked up at my terror-stricken face and mouthed out the correct lyric. I eventually regrouped, but it was too late to save the number.

At the cast party, I pissed in a grotto. Ave.
Then returned to cohabitational hell with the awful girlfriend.
As our relationship crumbled completely, she refused, at the last minute, to attend Pat Redding's wedding up in Connecticut. So I missed it, immediately ruining several fine friendships.

Boy, do I miss hanging out with Pat and Rob and Becker. And Pete and Paul.
Sigh.

**FAMOUS LAST WORDS**
Anyway, as I was up on the cross every performance, sucking in the faint beginnings of this gut that I now wear like a parade drum, I'd breathe deep the smoke machine smoke and ponder my few remaining lines. What - if any - similarity do the official, biblical "last words of dyin' Jesus" bear to those in the JCS libretto? Pull up a chair, pilgrim!

MATTHEW: "My God, my God: why hast Thou forsaken me?"
TIM RICE: "Why have you forgotten me?"
Here the Good Book shows more huevos than the "book." "Forsaken" seems to imply intention: "What the hell is this about, pop?" "fuck you, O my son!" A son forsook. Forsooth!
Rice is giving God the Father an out: "Yoo hoo! Dad? Remember me? Hanging here? BLEEDING? Ring a bell?" Dad might be napping… or busy with clients.
MARK agrees with Matthew on this quote, and they both go on to state that Jesus "cried out in a loud voice and gave up the ghost." This sounds, perhaps, like a southern colloquialism but it's King James all the way. The original Aramaic (as we'll hear in Mel Gibson's new version of the Passion) reads: "Jesu gave out with a yelp and then just flat-out exfluncted right up on that there contraption them Eye-talians built."

LUKE adds the famous: "father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"
RICE uses this one verbatim. A good move, that. This is one time a paraphrase might fall flat. "Father, let 'em slide for this one" wouldn't convey the appropriate drama, and "Ouch! Yeeeooow! That smarts! Hey… c'mon… you wanna watch it with the lance already!?" would be pushing the vernacular / humanizing approach too far.

LUKE goes on to include Jesus' comment to the "good thief," crucified beside him: "Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise." Because the little brown-nose stood up for him after the "bad thief" quite understandably said: "Hey, if you're God, how's about you get us all out of this fix?" …for which he was probably damned to eternal flame. The other guy managed to GROVEL while nailed to a fucking CRUCIFIX! And for this he gets entry into the kingdom of Heaven. Apple for the teacher. Man!
RICE omits this episode entirely, showing a lone Jesus… a Shane of Golgotha… promising nuttin' to nobody. In ignoring this incident, Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber missed the chance for a great 3-part number: "I got the cross right here…" Add the Romans and disciples and you could really work up a fancy-schmantzty piece of business like the Quintet in "West Side Story."

LUKE agrees with Mark and Matt that JC cried with a loud voice, but quotes the actual cry as: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
RICE uses this as well, substituting "your" for "thy," a point too minor to even mock.

JOHN gives us: "Woman, behold thy son!" spoken to the Virgin Mary, and then adds: "Behold thy mother!" spoken to an unspecified disciple. The first line may be interpreted as whining, which I'm glad to see the Son of Man as guilty of as I am (I mean, that display in the garden of Gethsemane… what the fuck was THAT?). The second is a command to his disciple to take care of mother Mary in his absence. This McCartney-esque parental concern is admirable. For once Jesus impresses me as a decent fellow. A little late: "Oh, NOW you think of your mother, Mister Instigator! Mister Martyr!"
RICE has this as: "Who is my mother? Where is my mother." I'm stumped on this one. Is Rice presenting a savior as lost and bewildered as an unimprinted baby duck? That would figure. In the Last Supper, he makes Jesus sing: "for all you care, this wine could be my blood." Talk about whining! According to Tim Rice, the point of the central ceremony in the Christian Mass is "you guys don't give a shit about me at all." If that's all it takes, then where's my halo?

JOHN: "It is finished"
RICE: ditto.

SPORT: double-ditto.